Dirt Candy is one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants in the city, and the dishes manage to consistently be both imaginative and delicious. Chef Cohen and her restaurant are doing fantastic, and they’re even opening up a bigger restaurant (because it’s really small and hard to get reservations at right now) in fall 2014. You can see her blog post about it here.

Some items, like the hush puppies, mushroom appetizer, beans entrée, corn entrée, Nanaimo Bar, and celery cheesecake roll, are well-liked dishes that have been on the menu for at least 10 months now. (They were on the menu when I went in April.) Other items, like the spinach appetizer, broccoli entrée, and popcorn pudding, have been on the menu for a few months now—I actually think that these are the best dishes on the menu. The newest dishes are the cucumber appetizer, potato appetizer, and beets entrée, and they aren’t bad—I just don’t think they’re as good as the others. Honestly, though, all of the dishes are worth trying! (Just make sure you at least get spinach, broccoli, and the popcorn pudding haha.)

We’ve wanted to try Dirt Candy for a while now; a LOT of friends have recommended it and have said that it’s a great vegetarian restaurant—and it is! Unfortunately, reservations are pretty hard to get, so I did some OpenTable stalking and managed to find a reservation a few days before! (Reservations open up every now and then—otherwise you’ll have to wait at least a month…)

Authors: Victor, Monty, Steven, and Tad
Restaurant: Dovetail
Exec Chef: John Fraser
(Chef Fraser used to be a chef de partie at the French Laundry and the executive chef at Compass.)

Date: September 18, 2012

Victor’s Notes:
-The “Dovetail” name comes from the “dovetail joint”. The dovetail joint is used to join the sides of a drawer to the front, so the idea is that it joins things together. Basically, they want to bring together different cuisines and cooking styles! (Tad’s Note: Unfortunately, I have no idea how to build a drawer. But apparently the restaurant was named after it).
-We’ve been here a couple of times, but this is the first time that we bothered to actually take pictures.

Tad’s Notes:
-The others may have only been here a couple of times, but I’ve been here many more times. I’m just here to see these guys refine themselves. What a Pygmalion am I.
-This is one of my favorite restaurants because it’s really casual and close. It’s one of the few restaurants worth going to in the Upper West Side, and their dress code is just smart casual (that means jeans allowed for you Plebes).
-Despite the chef’s pedigree, it is actually surprisingly easy to get reservations here… It makes it feel less exclusive :(.